If I Needed Someone
by MaclaurinSerious00
Summary: Saeko betrayed Ami. Rei and Makoto stuck with Ami. Now the three are grown up. They have strength, but how will they face life? Bad summary, the story will be better. Sequel to WHAT GOES ON.
1. Life

_Don't own any characters. The sequel to "What Goes On." Don't know where the story will end, but here's the beginning of this part. Call it the _Behind Blue Eyes_ saga_.

* * *

><p>01:Life<p>

* * *

><p>So as it turned out Makoto went far in life. She had three months to go before she was out of Juuban High – out on the street, as she considered it. Then Maehara-san ran away with some fellow, Keitaro or Kentaro or Keiichi, some name like that, Makoto had never paid attention closely, because the result was so much more interesting than cataloging Maehara-san's various dalliances. The result was, the store was bestowed, lock, stock, and barrel, upon Makoto. Maehara's Florist was then Kino's Florist overnight, and in a few months she built a monster of service that she sold, intending to move to the States. Skipping school to do so. And her friends were ready to come along. There was the bond between them. The promise of work and board was there as well, but of course they would have probably followed for less or nothing.<p>

The three had moved in together the beginning of that year of fluxion their senior year, taking residence at Hikawa Shrine, helping Rei. Who could use the help. It was not necessarily that her friends, peers, perhaps contemporaries, had scruples born of a staunch Catholicism with respect to helping the upkeep of a pagan shrine – if girls' room conversations were any evidence, Rei would have impressed Mary Nazarene in terms of chastity. Rather, it was her manner, sometimes cold, sometimes supercilious, sometimes both, that endeared her little to the nuns, less to her teachers, and least of all to her classmates. So the only help, and in effect her only friends, were Ami and Makoto. Her grandfather had relinquished all his lust one sweltering day in July, a Monday, and by Wednesday evening he was gone, over Rei's protest, on a quest to find himself. However, as she used her psychic power less and less – she still got images of varying lucidity, but she peddled it less and less – receipts declined, and by the time the three went abroad the shrine's demise was not much of an end.

Ami's story was the most extreme. She had been top of the nation. Eventually she was neck-and-neck with Usagi, and eventually she settled with a bump on par with Makoto and Rei, at the tier they had reached around the same time. When Saeko was around she sighed, looking more tired than ever. Ami did not care. She still read profusely, and she still read things on the road to quantum gravitation, but she now merely showed up and slept in class, going home to read the masters. Similar to the others' attitudes. Makoto had never been brilliant, but any competitive drive, for which she was famous, a sort of zeal without prudence, was gone. As with Rei.

So that by the end of their senior year Ami and Rei were still responsible on some points but in many ways were depending on Makoto. Who had plenty to allow dependence. And they would work, that was certain and agreed. They had worked at Makoto's Florist, after the temple no longer made money and before Makoto sold out to some buyer de Vleet.

Rei had no explanation necessary to anyone – her grandfather was gone and beyond communication – and when Ami broached the subject with Saeko there was no resistance. Saeko was never around but she got, through a signed request from Juuban, a copy of her daughter's grades and exam scores, and she knew what would happen. She would not have been averse to the thought of putting up her daughter, whose prospects were now forgotten, but she had a hunch that her daughter would much rather go forth with her friends. Which was the idea.

And so, after graduations, in which these three were not included, they had toiled all summer and fall and winter and spring and summer again, building up the Florist more and more, before they sold out to that buyer for just enough capital to relocate and put up a business of a comparable size in the states. The three always had felt marked, Ami and the brains she bore like a thorny crown, Rei and her worldview like that of a medieval hangman, and Makoto dismissed as freakish or violent before she could even bother to show her true self, and so this leaving Japan for America seemed … right somehow. Minako had always gone on and on about turning eighteen and setting up shop on some Dating site catering to western men, as had Usagi until she found Mamoru (when appraised of the wonders of this plan Rei had put forth an eloquent evaluation of the blondes' notions, and those of the men, and those of the people who ran the site, which elicited a resolute though not forceful joint approbation from Makoto and Ami; that episode seemed to be the portent of the break that was to come later but surely), and of course the whole shining American culture thing was a big deal, but that was not the point.

It was far away. They were unknowns there, and they would be reinventing themselves, with all the baggage of their tawdry teen years gone. It was cloture.

And so when they stepped on the grimy plane, the sun blazing that brisk fall morning, it was more than a million new manga issues. It was all the wind and noise regarding the romance of Christmas Eve and Valentines' Day lost forever. Their contemporaries who had stuck to the system, they may have had a solid state, but then that state was static. That was all they would know.

Failure was real and maybe certain, but it was a faraway failure, if even real, and the faraway excused the failure anyway.


	2. Throe

_Author's note: don't own anything. Also, Ami's father's name is apparently never defined in the series; I probably got Hiro from _Crayon Shin-chan.

* * *

><p>Throe<p>

* * *

><p>"How come there's no business yet?"<p>

This from Ami. She had gotten back from a double shift at the convenient store. Makoto was practically living in the kitchen at the restaurant twenty minutes away; she was not away, which was good because she had been angry to the point of scary the last time her lack of floral progress had been remarked. Rei had not yet found work; Makoto and Ami had pretty good English but Rei's was not good at all. When last she had paid attention to school she would cram for English.

"She said it would take time."

"But it's been three steady months. We're not getting any richer. We're not even rich now."

"Well, it's a little late to turn back now."

"But I'm just saying – "

"Well I'm just saying, we throw everything away and pin it all on Mako's business plan, and then we talk about quitting?"  
>"But Rei, I'm not – "<p>

"Just, just please." Rei sat at the table, head in hand.

The bolt turned and Makoto came in. Usually she was really up and excited. Today she mimicked the weather – it was a downpour all day, and a gray sky. She propped her umbrella in the corner. It was a small, shabby apartment on the edge of Oakland. When they found it – Makoto had been really uptight that day they had hunted it down – Ami had briefly wondered if she might see Hiro her father. But that was San Francisco, and maybe he had moved from there even.

"Hey guys. We need, we need to, um, talk." Makoto actually seemed at a loss for once. She sat down, and Makoto lay her head in her arms. "I've got a thousand left in the pot. We can't stay much longer. The rent's going to go up, and I won't get paid for a month." Rei and Ami said nothing. "We'll make another month or two, but there's not much here. And it doesn't sound like I'll be needed around the restaurant much longer. So we'll have to find something somewhere. And I guess America's economy sucks or something so we picked a hell of a time to come over."

The three sat in silence. The clock ticked on.

Ami seemed to be struggling with a thought. Rei and Makoto looked on. "Ami?"

"You know. Daddy moved to California years ago."

"You can't be serious," said Makoto. Rei just sat there looking at her tea, black elixir in fine cups, the only artifacts she had brought over.

Ami shook her head in earnest. "Castro Street in San Francisco. Mom said so. It's worth a try, and he's doing well."

"You're unbelievable, Ami. You're unbelievable." Just flatly. Rei shook her head. She looked up. "It's worth a try, isn't it?"

"You're going to crawl to _him_? Ami, even if he is anywhere this side of the world, you want to crawl to him?"

"No, Mom didn't want to crawl to _him_. I never thought one way or the other about it much. I guess I never had much time to think about it. We need help. And I guess it's selfish, even though I haven't seen him forever."

Makoto sighed. "Well, I guess we gotta do something. I'm up for trying it. San Francisco is it? Castro Street?"

"It's crazy! We won't find him. And we're caving in. We might as well have stayed home if we'll just depend on everyone else. We make a mess and put it on someone else. Like Tsukino."

"Well we've got to do something. I'm up for it," said Makoto.

"And I thought it up. Are you in, Rei?"

Rei looked from Ami to Makoto. "God, I see why Umino always used to say you guys were meant for each other. So did Mamoru, did you know that? You're a picture together." They both blushed. "_Kidding_. I'm in." Unsmiling she downed her tea.

It was the middle of the night. Each had a sleeping bag on the floor in the small bedroom adjacent. Ami looked over in the dark as Rei snored. "Makoto? Are you awake?"

"Yeah. Look. I'm sorry this didn't work."

"It's fine. We'll find something. It's better than staying put. There was nothing left."

"I've been on and off the street my whole life. Maehara-san gives me that flower shop, and it just seems like the whole world was before me. I got into it, and then I thought selling it away and trying to make it myself was the way. I guess I was right."

"You were. It'll just take a little longer."

"I might have done it wrong though. I hope it comes out alright."

"It will."

"Goodnight." The tall woman rolled over and curled up a bit. Ami closed her eyes again.

"Ami?"  
>"Yes?"<p>

Makoto paused a bit. Ami actually dosed off slightly, and then she spoke again. "I'm glad you came along. I'm glad you pulled through that depression. Didn't you?"

"It's been gone a long time," Ami said. "Mako?"

"Hm?"

"I'm glad I came along with you. Tomorrow will be better."

"I hope so, Ami."

"I know so."


	3. Age

Age

Author's note: don't own anything. On with the story.

They tried houses up and down Castro all day. No houses with Mizuno on the doorplate it was the best they could run on, and Rei would be for asking for him at each house, but she couldn t do English and Makoto and Ami would be dead against such a trial. So they walked. They tried an apartment on a corner, a dingy three-story house that needed a new coat of paint. Windows that needed washing, a lawn with a piebald look. They went doubtfully up the four battered steps.

They stood there doubtfully. It was a cool afternoon with a gray sky overhead, and a loan bird blundered overhead with a sore, cracked note. Cars wheeled up and down the street behind them. Just open the door and there he is? I barely remember how he looks. I guess, I was little, I guess I blocked him out. Ami felt trapped. They were on a stage of sorts, this whole American center of life behind them, and waiting behind the door was not her father, nonsense. The landlady. But still to be on trial. Ami looked to her left. Makoto, taller than either of them, a sweet face but the deportment of a prizefighter and the mien of one too, one who has been through fights and won and lost. On the right, Rei, tall and elegant, but a hard look on her face as always. Her good for nothing father, her loving mother who died young and neglected by all but her and Grandfather. Rei, who probably considered that the man she had always remonstrated with but loved, Grandfather, was now gone, probably not dead but still lost. Probably lost as Hiro Mizuno, for there was that stark shame, the dropping off of the veil, with which he recognized and fled his indiscretions when he went on pilgrimage. Hiro would feel that if he was decent, perhaps. Ami was sure of it. Rei, who was the soul of elegance back home, Rei who had ceased that life by choice, Rei who now was in a land where she could speak barely any English. Rei who had coolly dismissed America as an asylum for ridiculous portly men, similar women, and of course (in her charitable hours) a few real people.

Here, I ll knock, said Makoto, who aspirated thus and knocked in the same instant, three sharp raps to get the uncertainty over with.

After few moments the door opened. An old, short woman with a mop of white hair, sucking on a cigarette and exhaling mechanically as she fumbled with a cane too big for her. She had a grim look on her face, but as she scanned the three women and noted Ami s eyes, perhaps the connection was made, and she softened slightly, with wonder not sentiment. Ami knew this her mother had determined, hard eyes, but she had her father s eyes, sort of happy and sad. The token ill girl of a manga, Minako had once styled it.

You re, you re looking for Harry, right? Paints?

This was for Ami, and she spoke. Probably. Hiro Mizuno, he s an artist. A really good artist, she thought afterword.

"Harold's at, let me see, " she took a drag, and she gave an address on Haight Street. She gave them an idea how to get there. " I hope you see him. Big art show. He s actually invited me now and then. Not my cup of tea though." A thought. "You can wait here if you don t see him. He'll come back sooner or later." Another drag and blow.

Rei stifled back a choke for dignity's sake. "Thanks. I think we'll go and see him," said Ami.

The old lady nodded. "Name's Eleanor Edwards. Well, it was a pleasure to meet you" , and she pulled the door shut.

It was a big Victorian house on Haight. The sign by the door noted that upstairs there was an exhibition of paintings by local artists. _Hiro Mizuno is at the top of the list. Some of them aren't even named. Pride. Not like Mother's pride, though. It's not really status for him. Or obsession with him getting ahead. He did it himself. Whether or not doesn't enter into it_. As the three walked inside (they noted it was free, put on by some community beautification endeavor or something), Ami realized that when they crossed the Pacific she had of course thought of her father, she thought of him consistently and dreamed of a hazy figure in lieu of his actual similitude, which some part of her had repressed somehow; what she had not realized, hadn t thought with perception and certitude, that they would be in his country, would have easier means than ever before of seeing him. If Makoto had not failed to make a mark or had not been able to do so at all, then it might have been years before she had the chance to think of seeing her father. When pressed to it, she had thought of it suddenly. It was odd.

Not that she missed him. She truly could not remember him. He was Santa Claus, this sort of entity that she perceived was good because he gave, but she could not think of walking with him or hanging with him. He wasn't palpable. She did not know truly of being without him, so this was less reunion than a meeting for the first time.

As they went up the stairs they met with music, a soft, free jazz. They got to the top of the stairs, and it was a room adjacent to a big room with the exhibition, what must have been a few rooms let into one at some point. As they went into the room, which had a fair amount of people milling about and looking at paintings and chatting (immediately and clearly a semi-formal to formal affair, probably mostly attended by the people who had arranged it themselves), the source of the music was clear. A mood to take in the works. At a standup piano sat a small, frail looking girl, pale and with nine or ten stud piercings on her earlobe. Next to her, further in the corner, was the saxophonist. The instrument was a big, tarnished silver saxophone and had a full, placid sound. The musician looked about the age of the pianist; she was clearly the age of the other and had pink hair, styled almost reminiscently of Usagi s. They mixed well with the soft mist that had started outside, a nice quiet but deep sound and soul.

Rei, Ami, and Makoto stayed sort of huddled together as they went, trying to show decision of purpose as they pretended to be there for the art, all paintings, and not in search of someone.

Rei trailed behind slightly, and then she sensed a presence. She whirled around.

The guy had bristly hair and a ragged green coat, the sleeves too long, though he was probably better than six feet tall. He was kind of slimy, and if his thick glasses were unflattering, they at least downplayed his skewed eyes. In his big mitt, the back of which was obscured by a reddish grove, was clenched a battered big sketching pad, stuffed with papers. "Hi, I am in need of a model." A foolish sort of deep lilt, with slobbering. He leaned in when he had spoken his piece. Rei reached behind for Makoto s shoulder, full of a black horror.

"Sorry, miss. Ed, man, you know I can't," And he stopped. The three turned around, Ed standing there grinning sheepishly.

The man had greenish hair, shot with gray and fairly rumbled. A thick scraggly beard. A ragged wooden crucifix of sticks bound with strawlike twine, hung from his neck. He had a vest jacket, like that of a hunter, which was a drab green, and his shirt was a wrinkled white dress shirt. His eyes were reddish, possibly from a dubious cigarette or two. "Oh God. Oh God."

He stood, swaying slightly. The patrons stopped now and then, looked about in curiosity, and then went back to the pictures, not so much in awe of the bedraggled man Hiro, or his protege Ed, whom they both knew, but more of this tableau that seemed, though its meaning was occluded, momentous to them.

"Ami."


	4. Father

_author's note: don't own anything_

Father

_ Coming home from art school and the grocery store where I would sleep in the corner, the rain would patter on the awning and against the bricks on the other side of the wall and I would draw or sleep and Kono-san would doze in the back room and sometimes wake and come in and rap the desk with the girlie magazine rolled in a baton and then go back to sleep and I mumbling an excuse and seeing no need, lying back to sleep. And then there was Saeko and she so older so much like Papa before she died and he had the bottle-opener pendant, more motherly than Mama at some time. Saeko always having the answer we're short for dinner oh, that's no problem she can pay out Takashi-sama always forking out money so Sae-tan can show up in med school and get an exam paper and write a textbook and pass the class that afternoon and look smart and smart doing it and then support that weird blue mess in the corner, scribbling his badly drawn landscapes, all he's good for is corny postcards, and we should settle down Hiro-kun and never mind Papa's so old-fashioned wears the robe and Panama every day of his life and makes Mama wear her kimono, would have her paint her face like those old woodcuts I never forged never dreamed I would do them justice anyway_

_ Saeko seeing that pregnant lady one time in the park and the young couple and toddler young Ikuko was it? looked like her and saying Oh Hiro wouldn't you look great like that a business suit and me in a crummy polo and Papa's old work pants Come on come on just a feel and I saying we should wait why not a lifetime of commitments just like that Yoko Ikumi Hana Haruhi Haruko Haruka and the girl downstairs and the girl upstairs and across the way and Saeko so like a flower a beauty in ice and that time Golden Week taking four hours to do a study and Takashi or sometimes the psycho coming in from some meeting and going out to another or some community thing or some high trust and Saeko buttoning up the blouse and me with a wad of charcoal in my back pocket in my mouth like taffy or in the corner just talking oh this another of my landscapes want to see No why don't you give that up and get on the bus or something you've got drive if nothing else. _

_ Saeko's graduation and all her friends looking away. Her pregnancy and Takashi hitting the ceiling, his open hand and my lip face stinging and Saeko my only friend in the world only friend in the house, and pretty soft then but having to sit to eat with those faces. Art all day and then Ami born and those few years Hiro makes a fine housewife, at least and the witch saying nothing the whole house dishonored and her finger painting perfect profile of Hiro like the Dylan album cover And thank god the witch dead and Takashi flat on his back and Saeko comes home and look what I drew it's Daddy and she snatches it up and full blue head even then back of her hands her nails shone in the ambience of the floor lamp and Ami sideways in the blink of an eye and the vase all over the art in the living room and Saeko's vein showing Look what you did to her dammit and I nothing to say and she says No more Mizunos dammit one's enough if you stay we go Ami wailing Maaamaa mama and she quieting her and hides Ami from Hiro the beard anyway crazy little boy blue. _

_ And that whole year I don't remember just blank and wake up to a lot of beercans and joints and joints no bill though thank god and a crummy San Francisco apartment and then the soup kitchen until Father Abramowicz had to shoo me away but how great his art is and the little girl longing in the casket and the weird comics dirty smut doujin about Sailor N and none to support and why the hell didn't I do this earlier and Ami that's why but hell I ruined her life or Saeko ruined mine or hers or Saeko's and Ed shows up lots of talent maybe he's the daughter son I never had and he wanted art and the McNeals never caring what he did just don't blow up the house or shoot up the school and me wanting to impress that pink haired girl and thinking if only I'd do a study some day her and saxophone by window on rainy afternoon and her calling me a dirty old man didn't do anything well Ed's there at least would he serve in a picture I wonder he can draw in a flash anything has to be weird though the boy's like R. Crumb only better _


End file.
